The Heavenly Host

“Talarius, the knight who was abducted, has a walking, talking sword. It is trying to locate and rescue Talarius and in the due course of its investigation, it outed me as a demon in front of a majority of the Council.”

“How could it do that?” Bess asked, puzzled.

“Well, it claims to glow in the presence of demons, and it was glowing near me. It would not leave me alone, so I tossed it across the room. It then clove me in two, and I got pissed. Council got involved, including my traitorous sycophant Randolf, and well, let us just say we are no longer welcome there.”

“So how are we going to get the book?” Bess asked.

“This will severely complicate things,” Ramses observed.

Exador pulled the meat up and away from his face, resting it on his forehead. He looked at his allies. “Actually, things are much simpler now; there is nothing left to hide. The gloves are coming off. We are going to seize the book from Lenamare and the Council even if we have to flatten Freehold to do it.”

∼

^DOF+11

^{Mount Doom Dawn}

Tom strode down the extremely quiet halls of Mount Doom. All the D’Orcs had loosened up considerably later in the evening. The D’Orcs and the few demons had all gone through a lot of x-glargh and x-other beverages, and Tizzy’s cookies had been a particular hit for some reason.

By the earliest hours of the morning, nearly everyone had been completely wasted and were sharing stories about how horrendous and awful Lilith was. They even had a new title for her: “The Jilted Bride.” Antefalken had shared it with people. Apparently, it was the worst possible insult for her. At one point when Tizzy had come to bring up more cookies, he happened to mention that Mount Doom was the only place in the Abyss where one could get away with insulting Lilith without fear of repercussion. Everywhere else, her spies would find out and one was likely simply to disappear for several centuries or more.

Overall, it was a good party and now the entire palace was quiet. The only sounds were those of the poor grunts who had to wake to take over at the shift change at dawn. They would certainly have a bad case of x-glarghvost; with luck, they had limited their intake enough to be alert this morning.

Tom entered Tizzy’s kitchen, where Tizzy and one other demon were washing bowls and large metal trays. “You still here?” Tom asked. He was surprised at the demon’s tenacity in the face of baking cookies. It had been a huge effort and Tizzy had really came through and kept his word.

“Just finishing up; my other assistants started eating the cookies as we baked them and then passed out, so I sent them to bed.” Tizzy shook his head, wiping down a large bowl with two of his hands and arranging cooking utensils in a crock on the counter with the other two. “Reliable help is so hard to get in the Abyss.”

Tizzy suddenly looked at him, puzzled. “You seem very sober. Did you not drink?”

Tom grinned. “Not much; I alternated between glargh and x-glargh. I was too paranoid about which of my enemies might want to do a surprise attack while all my people were getting wasted.”

Tizzy grinned brightly. “So, finally thinking like a demon lord!”

Tom grinned at Tizzy and said “Yes, and I need your help.”

Tizzy paused and grinned more malevolently. “Ye-eh-ss?” he drawled like a third-rate spy movie villain.

Tom shook his head. Just when he thought the demon was turning sane. “You have a link to Gastropé, yes? He summoned you to fight liches.”

Tizzy shrugged. “Yep. You need some liches?”

“No, thanks. I sort of screwed up and forgot to set up return gateways for the humans and orcs,” Tom said.

“Hmm, that could be a problem. Maybe they should just stay here?” Tizzy suggested.

“Or maybe you could have Gastropé help the two of us open a gateway to Astlan and we can send the Astlanians through it,” Tom suggested.

“And then we get to eat the others?” Tizzy asked hopefully.

“No. They are my people; I can’t very well and go around eating my own people!” Tom exclaimed.

“You really have not met Lilith, have you?” Tizzy asked.

“No. And at the moment I don’t want to. The other shamans are going to be trickier, however; from what I have read and heard, travel between the various planes of Midgard is easier than coming and going from the Abyss,” Tom said.

Tizzy shrugged with his upper shoulders. “I guess. Never really tried it. I always hub out of the Abyss. Not by choice, of course. My accursed masters are the ones booking the tickets. However, that is the advantage of living on a hub plane: direct routes to everywhere. Whether you want to go there or not.” Tizzy grimaced, apparently remembering some of his trips to visit accursed masters.

“Well, I figure that once we are in Astlan, Damien will know someone who can travel between the material planes,” Tom said.

Tizzy shrugged. “Probably. Did you ask him?”

“He’s asleep.”